Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

This whiteboard was FULL - and I mean jam-packed - with ideas, notes, bullets, to-dos, action items, brainstorms, and some jottings about the "next big thing" for our professional speaking and inbound marketing firm.

Perhaps you have a similar whiteboard in your office. Or a wall filled with post-it notes. Or plaques and awards on your bookcase. Or other visual reminders of where your company has been and all that you have accomplished.

Tremendously exciting. Truly.

The only problem: it was tremendously exciting in your past. With every day, every week, every month - hell, every hour - that you do not ACT on those ideas, they start to turn on you.

They are no longer motivators - they are pacifiers that remind you how great you WERE. What you imagined would BE. And what - for better or worse - didn't quite turn out the way you envisioned last week, last month or last year.

In my case, my office whiteboard was holding onto ideas and initiatives from 6 months ago.Yikes! Totally useless to me today. EXCEPT it made me feel good about how gosh darn smart I am and what big plans I have/had (NOT!)

When Steve Jobs came back as interim CEO of Apple in 1997, he had every award, plaque, and completed project plan removed from the walls and hallways of Apple. He did not want any visual reminders of the past. All he wanted his teams to see was their future.

NEW plans, CURRENT prototypes, and UPCOMING projects were all over Apple's hallways, offices, and conference rooms. Everything was future-focused and kept rigorously up to date.

What do you need to erase from your whiteboard? Which awards should you put away? Which of your accolades are keeping you stuck in the past?

Put that stuff away.

Look to your CURRENT future. In the words of Steve Jobs - it will help you "Stay hungry. Stay foolish." And it will help you achieve your NEXT level of "insanely great."

Want to apply for your Speaker Strategy Call to see how you can IMPLEMENT some of these concepts right away? Apply for your call here.

When I first started my online business, I had no idea what a business coach was, let alone why I needed one. I was much more concerned with the technical aspects of building a website, launching a podcast, and figuring out what social media was all about.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that hiring a business coach would’ve saved me hours each week, and not just when it came to learning to format my Twitter profile.

I learned that a business coach is crucial to speeding up the learning curve, connecting with your target market, and avoiding expensive mistakes that new online business owners tend to make. In essence, hiring a coach will get you in the game faster, keep you there longer, and let you focus on building your brand and connecting with customers.

So how do you find the business coach of your dreams?

1. Clarify your values

What matters most to you in your business, and as a human being? For me, giving back is a huge part of why I do what I do. When looking for a coach, it was important to me to work with someone who shared that value. I didn’t care if they were the most well-respected business coach in the world; if their values didn’t match mine, I didn’t want to work with them.

Your values don’t necessarily have to be personal or moral in nature - they might include your working style, or what’s most important to you in a professional relationship.

For example, do you value someone who gives it to you straight, or someone who is more nurturing? Are you a go-with-the-flow type of person, or do you prefer to have everything planned out?

Figure out which values are most important to you in a working relationship before beginning your search for the perfect coach or mentor.

2. Set expectations

What do you expect to get out of working with a business coach?

Would you like a coach who…

will answer frantic phone calls in the middle of the night?

meets with you for hours at a time?

conducts sessions strictly over Skype?

follows up with you even after you’ve completed your sessions?

Start to think about your expectations of the relationship, including how much time you want to spend working with your coach and what you expect them to teach you. Some people may want a good listener, while others may want to be told exactly what to do and how to do it. What’s your preference?

You should also consider how you want to work with your coach:

Would you prefer…

One-on-one power sessions?

Mastermind groups?

Live webinars?

Weekly phone calls?

If you’d rather be face to face than on the phone, look for a local coach who can meet with you in person. If you’re busy with a full time job and can barely squeeze in a weekly webinar, find a coach who can work around your schedule.

You should also clearly state the goal of working with a coach. How will you know if the coaching relationship has been successful?

Make a list of exactly what you want help with, and what you want to achieve. You might want something as basic as help setting up your website, or something as esoteric as defining the feeling of your brand. Get specific so you can find the perfect person to deliver what you need.

3. Create a budget

You can spend $25 on a business coach or $25,000. What’s your budget?

Keep in mind that the most expensive mentor in the world doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting the best mentor in the world.

Many business coaches offer monthly packages that include weekly phone calls and email support. Generally speaking, one-on-one coaching will be more expensive than group coaching, but you’ll receive less attention.

An experienced, well-known business coach might charge upwards of $500/hour for his or her time. If you fall in love with a coach and find out their price point is too high, don’t give up right away. Contact them first to see if they have a payment plan or a program that’s within your price range.

4. Schedule an interview

Once you’ve found someone who shares your values, meets your expectations, and falls within your budget, it’s time to set up an interview.

If the business coach you’re interested in is highly successful, you may feel intimidated and fall into what I like to call the “pick me!” mentality. Remember that there has to be chemistry on both sides in order for a relationship to work. If this coach is recommended by everyone but you get a bad vibe from them, it’s not worth the investment.

Prepare a list of questions for your interview, and be sure to take note of how you feel during the interview. Do you feel listened to? Does the coach seem confident that they can help you?

A good business coach will be extremely interested in hearing all the details of where you are now and where you want to go - without those details, he or she has no way of knowing if the coaching relationship will be a good fit.

Finally, make sure that you like the person you’re about to hire. They may have all the knowledge and expertise in the world, but if you dread spending an hour on the phone with them, you’ll be wasting your money.

Entrepreneurs who START a business typically exhibit these traits:

Self-Reliant - they want to know they're 100% responsible for their own results

Hard-working - they're not afraid of hard work, long hours, and the toughest boss they'll ever have (see #1 above!)

Entrepreneurs who SUCCEED in business typically exhibit these traits:

Dream big but dream focused. They want to create something that is substantial and that makes a real contribution. But they are also focused enough and disciplined enough to distinguish between opportunities and distractions.

Lifelong student. They're willing to learn, experiment and try new things. They regularly challenge their own assumptions and explore outside their comfort zone.

Willing to ask for help, delegate, and outsource. Most entrepreneurs are better at helping than being helped. But if you’re not willing to ask for help or delegate to others, you severely limit your growth.

Will break through obstacles. Entrepreneurs always get stuck. Whether in dire straits financially, facing a tough new competitor, or dealing with internal headaches, the entrepreneurial journey is almost always turbulent. Successful entrepreneurs expect this and have learned to "secure their own oxygen mask before assisting others."

Resilient. They face disappointment with courage. And more important, they bounce back. Again and again and again. And again!!

Have patience. Things rarely work out for entrepreneurs as quickly as they'd like. Successful entrepreneurs have come to understand that sometimes the "shortcut" is the long way.

What do YOU think? Please use the COMMENTS section below to share your own advice, insights, and recommendations on what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur...

For a very long time, you couldn’t sit through any marketing seminar or sales training without some moron blathering on about the radio station WIIFM - “What’s In It For Me?” as if this was cutting edge information that you had never heard before.

Well, we’re changing the station, folks… because the only radio station your prospects care about today is WNOR:

Wants

Needs

Outcomes

Results

Let’s dig into each one of these individually so that YOU can begin broadcasting your marketing and sales messages on this channel to get more leads, attract better prospects, and close bigger sales.

Wants. Wants are desires. These are aspirational, positive things that your prospect is attracted to. Examples include more time, more money, more hair, more sex, more happiness, more cupcakes… you get the idea. In order to enter the conversation already happening in your prospect’s mind, it is vitally important that you speak prospect language about prospect wants. NOT industry jargon. NOT marketing-speak. Plain English. Put another way: this is where your prospects want to go.

Needs. Needs are problems and challenges that your prospect is looking to solve. Needs are generally articulated as pains, hassles, heartaches, headaches, and gaps. When there is a need, it is calling out for something. A fix, a missing puzzle piece, or a solution. Put another way, these are your prospects’ obstacles and roadblocks that need to be removed in order for them to achieve their wants.

Outcomes. Outcomes live on the other side of your prospect buying your product or service. Once they buy, use, install, or consume what you’re selling, their condition improves. Outcome statements are phrased in terms of boosting the positive (teamwork, innovation, productivity, profitability, etc) and reducing the negative (complaints, defects, returns, injuries, wasted time, wasted money, inefficiencies, etc.)

Results. Results are the emotional benefits of achieving the outcomes. Another way to put this is that results are the “ultimate destination” or payoff that stems from the outcomes. The pivotal phrases you can use to frame results are: “so that you feel...” - “so you restore...” “so you regain...” - “so you can relax about…”

Here’s a complete examplefrom my work with small business owners and independent professionals who want to grow their business.

Use this as a "fill-in-the-blank" model - Remove MY language and plug in YOUR language that corresponds to YOUR specific product/service/value in ways that YOUR prospects will recognize, respect, and resonate with.

Wants:

Perhaps we’re a good fit to work together if you want to:

Get laser-focused on getting more clients in less time and with less struggle

Use "inbound marketing" strategies to attract clients and customers to your expertise, regardless of price and regardless of your competitive environment

Do what needs to be done (finally!) to create a permanent foundation for your entrepreneurial success

Results:

Results you can expect after this program:

You'll consistently attract a much higher caliber of client

You'll clearly articulate your premium pricing - and never cave on price again

You'll feel focused on what matters most and make significant progress daily

You'll be positioned as an expert

You'll feel extremely confident

You'll concisely convey exactly how your business helps your clients

You'll trust yourself more than ever

You'll have a razor sharp profile of the ideal clients you want to serve - and you'll know exactly where to find them

You'll do ONLY marketing tasks that you find easy, effortless, and enjoyable

You'll feel inspired, supported, and motivated to take action

You'll know how to leverage your time and intellectual property

Your turn - how can you use the above WNOR model to restructure your marketing messages, web copy, sales letters, or other collateral so that they resonate 100% with your best prospects, customers and clients?

Please use the comments area below to share your advice, insights, and recommendations on using WNOR messaging in YOUR marketing and sales process.

If you're a thought-leading executive or entrepreneur, chances are excellent that you are actively using the Groups feature in LinkedIn. (And if you're NOT - well, you're missing a tremendous opportunity to add value to your prospect base, find new clients, and build new relationships - but more on that in another post!)

I belong to 50 LinkedIn Groups and of those, I own or manage three of them.

Today's topic is in response to the following email I got from a member of one of my groups:

Hi David!

I have tried to submit comments at least twice now on discussions that have been started by someone else in the group. When I hit the submit button, it tells me my comment is pending review.

Is there something I need to do on my end to get my comments to go through? Am I being blocked for some reason?

And then the SAME THING started to happen to ME in other groups I belonged to...

It was both a real headache and a real mystery to figure out how to solve this... til now.

Take a look... [Click the Enlarge icon in the lower right for a better view!]

What do YOU think? Please use the COMMENTS area below to share your advice, insights and recommendations on managing and profiting from LinkedIn Groups. And if you own a Group, feel free to post the link and a quick plug for your Group, too!

Due to hysterically funny technical difficulties, we put the last 5-6 minutes of content onto Part 2 here...

p.s. Corey is running one of his special 2-day intensive seminars in Michigan on 9/26-27 and you can get full details on that here. If you email him at corey@ebootcamp.com and put in the subject line, "David sent me" you'll qualify for a free electronic copy of Corey's bestselling book and "bring a friend" privileges to the event.

p.p.s. It's the best investment you'll make in your business this year. Corey guarantees it. And so do I.

We’ve all been there. And we all know that “Build it and they will come” is the last great false hope of the entrepreneurial class.

But in that statement also lies the answer.

Think about: “Build it and they will come”

Who’s “they”?

No, really - ask yourself this question.

Maybe even write down your answer on a piece of paper.

WHO. IS. “THEY”?

Most executives and entrepreneurs I work with who want to do a better job of marketing themselves and sell more products and services will come up with these answers:

THEY is:

My customers

My clients

My buyers

My prospects

OK, let’s take this one step further - who are your customers, clients, buyers, and prospects?

Here are some clues:

They’re not strangers

They’re not going to buy “sight unseen”

They’re not going to buy on first contact

So what does THAT mean?

They know you and your value proposition

With them, you’ve built up visibility and credibility

They buy (usually) based on a relationship, not on a single transactional impulse

Frankly, we all WISH buyers would buy ALL our products and services on a “transactional impulse” but that almost never happens, unless you’re running late night infomercials for knives - or insomnia cures. That one phone call - that one sales page on your website - that one email - that one postcard is almost NEVER going to make the sale.

Whatever product, service, or program you’re selling - the bottom line is simple:

You have to build the tribe before the tent.

Rather than this sequence:

Invest time, money, effort, and energy (lots) to create a new product/ service/ program

Offer it for sale

Crickets. (Silence.) More crickets

What if you created this sequence:

Be as helpful as you can to as many people as you can as frequently as you can

The next time you create something to sell, they’re lined up, credit card in hand, eager to buy the moment it’s released for sale

Who does this?

Rock stars. Artists. Gurus.

How?

They built the tribe before the tent.

Your website = your tent

Your keynote speeches and seminars = your tent

Your professional services offerings = your tent

Your newsletter = your tent

Your coaching and consulting programs = your tent

Your blog = your tent

Your LinkedIn Group = your tent

Your workshops, conferences or events = your tent

Your e-learning or video courses = your tent

Your Facebook business page = your tent

Your book = your tent

At the beginning, who and what are inside these tents? Obviously - it’s you. And a small fire. Just enough to keep you warm.

Now imagine yourself running around between these ELEVEN different tents, frantically tending those eleven fires, scrounging around finding enough wood to keep each fire alive.

How much room is there in each of these eleven small tents?

How available are you to welcome visitors into any one of those tents?

How much of a success (or failure) would you feel like if you occasionally got between 2-3 visitors in each tent to sit down and tell you their story or enjoy a toasted marshmallow with you?

How much time could you spend with THEM before running out to one of the nine or ten empty tents and leave them to entertain themselves?

How long do you think they'll stay in that empty tent without you to serve as host and with the fire slowly sputtering out in your absence?

Hmmmmm... interesting questions, right?

Now imagine things the other way...

You have a thriving tribe...

You offer them value

You invite their engagement

They start to follow you around

First 5 people - then 10 - then 25

And pretty soon 50, 100, 200 or more...

At some point, these folks will want to sit down - they’ll get hungry - they’ll get cold.

So you build something for them - a tent - and they welcome the opportunity to sit down with you around a blazing fire. They’ve each brought a log. One has a lighter. Another brings out some hot dogs. Someone else brought baked beans. Others start to break out the marshmallows, graham crackers and Hershey bars - S’mores for everyone!

There’s ONE tent. It’s not YOUR tent. It becomes OUR tent. You’re the leader. The provider. The sherpa. The guide. They gladly follow you for two reasons:

The experience you provide when they follow you (value, resources, stories, ideas, guidance)

The community you’ve built around them (the tribe, the relationships, the company of like-minded friends)

This is a much larger conversation -- and it’s tied to a very exciting project that we’re working on with some of the coolest small business experts on the planet. Can’t say any more than that for now. But stay tuned and you’re sure to hear more about it soon.

But the question YOU need to ask for the moment is…

How can YOU build the tribe before the tent?

Because sitting around in a small empty tent, exhausted, cold and alone… well, that just isn’t a lot of fun, is it?

What do YOU think? What are some examples of “building the tribe before the tent” that you’ve experienced? Are there some people YOU admire whose business fits into this model? Please use the COMMENTS area below to share your thoughts and experiences…

"No, no - remember the acronym I shared with you last time? DIP stands for Dollars In Play." She remembered.

Then she asked me to hang on as she shuffled through some notes and papers.

"Where are you looking for these numbers?" And she said that she keeps a scratch pad by her keyboard and has a more detailed tracking document that she updates every couple of weeks on her computer.

"Oh my goodness, there's your problem right there. You have to keep this info right in front of your face all day long."

REALLY in front of your face. My suggestion - make a poster using something as simple as a piece of flipchart paper and two different size Post-It notes: the Jumbo size and the smaller 3x3 square size.

Here's what a DIP (Dollars in Play) wall chart looks like:

Here's how it works:

1. Two categories: one called "In Play" and the other one for less serious prospects ("Jokers") You can see in the photo above, I've had a little fun and made a silly cartoon joker card. These are folks who are in my pipeline but (in my estimation) less serious, less committed, and less capable of making the financial commitment to hire me.

2. Post your prospects' full names, the service/product/program you discussed with them, the dollar value, and the source. For example, Jane Doe came from a referral from Frank. We have not talked yet, so there's no dollar value. Nat Cole came from Linkedin and we talked about a $1500 1-on-1 marketing consulting package. Sam Smith is hiring me for a $6500 speech in October. (All prospect names have been changed for the purposes of this blog post and photo - could you tell?)

3. Real time updates. Sometimes I'll even grab my pad of 3x3 Post-Its and write someone's name down WHILE I'm on the phone with them, walk over to the wall chart and stick their name on it. Can't tell you how satisfying this physical act can be.

4. Fluid movement. Don't be afraid to upgrade a joker to the serious column and don't be afraid to take a (formerly) serious prospect and move them into the Joker column. The factors to consider are their commitment level based on email and phone communication, their level of responsiveness, and how rapidly you are moving them from point to point in your sales process.

5. Reminders rule. If you see someone on your chart whom you have not spoken with or heard from in a few weeks, you probably need to get back in touch. Ideally, you never have a prospect who is just "floating" out there without a firm decision call on their calendar. But it happens. The chart reminds you to close those loops and corral your prospecting mustangs back onto your sales ranch.

6. Relentless removal. Remember the old sales adage, "Some will. Some won't. Who cares? Next!" That's the point of the chart. Up or out. If you're not going to buy, I'm going to cut you loose and throw you back in the ocean. The SECOND most fun you'll have with this chart (after slapping a brand new prospect's name onto the chart) is grabbing a prospect who said no - or who has disappeared on you despite your best efforts to hold them to their commitments - and RIP their name off the chart and tear it into tiny little pieces and chuck it in the trash.

7. Do the math. Feel the power. The point of tracking your sales pipeline in this manner is so that you have a real-time sense of "Dollars in Play." Every so often, you should glance over at your chart and add up the numbers that you see in the "In Play" column ONLY. (Don't add the jokers because that's why they're in the joker column - instead, do everything you can to move your jokers into the "In play" column or remove them altogether!)

In the photo above, you would have a "Dollars in Play" number of $21,000. For prospects who are considering mutliple options (for example, Mindy Kaling is holding a proposal with a $7500 option and a $2500 option), you should count the higher number.

Two reasons: 1.) It sets your internal expectation in that direction which will enhance your confidence in your subsequent conversations with Mindy. A confident seller creates confident buyers. So it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. 2.) It builds your capacity for marketing optimism, which every entrepreneur needs. Plus if you're going to be relentless in removing people (See Rule #6 above), you might as well be relentlessly optimistic about the folks who earn and keep a place in your active sales pipeline.

Now, are YOU ready for some DIP?

What do YOU think? Please use the COMMENTS area below to share your advice, insights and recommendations on this topic and join the conversation...